Okay, it was painfully obvious to me last night what line the President should never have uttered in the SOTU.

I mean, really, human-animal hybrids?????

Yes, he actually said it, right after he warned of the dangers of cloning.

Should we call it Bush's Anti-Satyr Program? (ASP) Or the No Cloning Or Centaurs Initiative? (NCOCI) Or even better, the Dr. Moreau Medical Malpractice Bill?

So, as usual, I coughed up $1.00 for my alma mater. And yesterday after checking my mail I discovered that they'd sent me a letter thanking me.

Included in the envelope was a small sticker, a form letter, and a personal letter from a student in the class of '09. Already annoyed that they'd wasted my $1.00 thanking me, I began to peruse the '09er letter. That's when I got really angry.

Essentially, the guy writing the letter is a freshman from Dalton, Massachusetts. That's fine, but hardly the sort of thing I'd want to read about even if I had given a large amount of money. He wants to be a political science/economics double major, which was also boring to me. By the time I made it through his favorite class (microeconomics) I was almost comatose. Then I hit his "dreams" and encountered a tiny nugget of gold: he wishes, after graduation, to become an investment banker.

Huzzah!

My school may have an image problem, and letters like this certainly aren't helping matters. A frosh who wants to become an i-banker? That's sick. He shouldn't have sold out so early. Freshman year is for legions of students to learn they aren't pre-med material. It's for people to take-up and later drop crew. It's for many crazy parties. It's not for people who seek to become i-bankers.

It almost made me want to give them 50 cents next year. Then we'll see who's laughing. At least I can take comfort that my fellow double-ohs are the stingiest class ever. Wonder why? Well, it's probably letters like these.

I think everyone should head over to The New Republic to read the debate going on over wiretaps. Let's look at a sample bit of text:

Yet the mere fact that a suspected or even a known terrorist has a U.S. phone number in his possession would not create probable cause to believe the owner of that phone also a terrorist; probably most phone conversations of terrorists are not with other terrorists. The government can't get a FISA warrant just to find out whether someone is a terrorist, though that's what it most needs to know. Nor can it obtain a warrant to intercept communications between two persons both of whom are in the United States, even if they are suspected of being members of a terrorist sleeper cell. These are crippling limitations.

So a terrorist has an American phone number in his possession. But, for some reason, we're unable to tap the phone in the foreign country. (Let's say we just busted in his door and he's gone, leaving behind a single rolodex.) As Posner himself states, "most phone conversations of terrorists are not with other terrorists" so we're left with the unenviable position of tapping an American citizen's phone in the hope that the terrorist will call him.

Does Posner not see the ramifications of this? By this logic, since the American could be talking to a terrorist, we must tap his phone. Why stop there? Why not simply tap every American's phone line if they make calls to the middle-east? Since, clearly, the vast majority of the people tapped are innocent (which the FBI is none too happy to deal with), expanding the search would make little difference.

This, precisely, is the reason that FISA exists: if a single individual is thought to be acting with terrorists, a wiretap would be issued. If, instead, fifty to a hundred names show up in the magical terrorist rolodex, then there is no probable cause to assume that any one of those names is the name of a terrorist.

Is probable cause a "crippling limitation"? Do police in America frequently butt up against it? If police suspect someone of murdering another person, but have no probable cause, are they someone being morally evil by refusing to spy on the person?

Posner's argument goes against everything America stands for: the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, the right to have the law proceed in an orderly fashion, and the right against unwarranted search and seizure.

Posner claims that these ideas are crippling limitations. But if we abandon them, the terrorists will have already won.

Today, the weather looks absolutely awful. Hopefully in keeping with yesterday's theme, I'm going to assume that work will be super-easy.

If you're concerned that Bush's SOTU speech will be full of deceptions and spin, it's nice to take a brief look over at a new Washington Post article that is refreshing for its candor. Let's roll the tape:

The quarterly report, the eighth published by the special inspector general's office, was the first to focus on how far reconstruction efforts have missed targets for provision of basic services outlined by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-administered body that governed Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

"After 18 months of intense reconstruction activity, many services have not returned to prewar levels," Bowen wrote.

Iraq was generating 4,500 megawatts of electricity before the invasion, and reconstruction officials said in 2003 their target was 6,000 megawatts, Bowen wrote. Iraq's current generating capacity is 3,995 megawatts.

Before the war, Baghdad residents received an average of 16 to 24 hours of electricity a day. They currently receive 3.7, the report said. Outside the capital, however, the situation has improved to 10.2 hours per day from four to eight hours before the war.

While Iraq produced 2.6 million barrels per day of crude oil before the war, it now produces 2.1 million, the report said.

And 8.25 million Iraqis currently have access to potable water, compared with 12.9 million before the war. Reconstruction officials had aimed to bring potable water to 23.4 million citizens.

You can say "we're opening schools" until you're blue in the face, but these numbers don't lie. The problem is two-fold: first, American companies are simply not up to the task of rapid reconstruction in war-torn areas; second, the ongoing security situation makes such reconstruction impossible.

The latter problem is, of course, somewhat of our own doing. By failing to properly plan for the insurgency, we ensured that a large number of delicate projects would be easily disrupted. Getting electricity back online is a good example. After having a talk with an individual who was

• a member of the CPA
• a violent party host

I determined that the overall American attitude toward the Iraqis is one of incompetence. He informed me that the reason the electricity wasn't working was that Iraqis were scavenging for metal, and that the transmission poles were easy targets for them. As fast as we'd put them up, they'd take them down. This seems like an oversimplification at best, but the larger point, namely, that we cannot provide electrical services, is correct. My simple solution? Why don't we just bury the lines?

And that brings me to the first problem: the lack of American know-how. I admit, that performing building/construction projects in a war-torn area must be difficult. But we've had years to train at this sort of thing. Why couldn't the Pentagon, through DARPA, develop a program for the sort of rapid reconstruction that would enable Iraqis to see immediate tangible benefits? To look at a single example, let's take potable water.

I find it difficult to believe that insurgents are blowing up water lines (as opposed to oil lines) but even so, shouldn't we have the ability to construct a brand new water distribution system in a town in a matter of hours? It's not rocket science, it's simple construction. Have the army move through and "clear out" any insurgents (despite their ability to come back) and in the following twelve hours, let the contractors in to install water and electrical lines.

You know what this reminds me of? That's right: rebuilding post-Katrina. The failure of the government to either possess or encourage the private sector to develop a rapid-response emergency construction team is inexcusable in this day and age.

It's an awful morning at work, but a beautiful blue sixty-five degree day outside. I am confused.

So Brad snagged me a copy of "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit" and I burned through it over the weekend.

It's a great book, yet it doesn't instinctively rebel against the 50's any more than it embraces that period. Instead, it does a good job at examining a way of life that seems to have disappeared.

I cannot relate to the idea of the "mega-corporation" in which there are thousands of striving middle managers. Almost every firm I've worked for has had a three-tier structure of upper and middle management, and the actual workers beneath them. I've never had to deal with vice-presidents or division heads or section leaders to any extent. As companies continue to flatten out, I can only expect that this trend will continue.

The book clearly doesn't idolize that corporate culture, and it certainly doesn't wax nostalgic about the main couple's home life. We're treated to a view of a somewhat violent father and a naive wife. Early in the novel, when the wife decides to make a change she declares that she'll start to serve "real meals" rather than hamburgers and hot dogs, and that the children will start going to church.

I wonder if, in our current generation, the idea of growing-up has been completely abandoned. There's no need, seemingly anymore, to stop eating the foods we wish, or to have to knuckle down and act mature. Thirty year old childless men with ten year relationships sit down on their couch and fire up video-games for fun. Why should one bother spending two hours creating a meal when one could simply go out to eat?

Of course, I'm not saying that this is bad, by any means. Just that our image of the martini-soaked, white-bread, racists fifties may be somewhat mistaken: perhaps they were just fooling themselves at the same time. Certainly the desire for money, for material goods, has gotten even stronger in the intervening years. When the main character, Tom Rath, muses about getting his children life-insurance, I couldn't help but think that I'd have to be incredibly rich to think about such a mature concept. Who can afford to sock money away for an event one will never be around to see?

My mistake, in hindsight, was transitioning straight from The Man... to American Psycho which describes perfectly the exact same sort of rat race in the 80's. At some point, most people, including myself, will have to slow down or risk burning out. Rath manages to make the transition well. I assume I can do better.

If you missed this morning's spur-of-the-moment presidential press conference, you didn't actually lose out. Bush only answered one question straight, about whether or not we could torture people. Excluding that, he continued to obfuscate on the NSA domestic wiretapping issue, a subject that is equally poorly discussed by Richard Posner in TNR.

Posner and Bush seem to make the following argument: if wiretapping makes us all safer, and the President is supposed to make us safer during a war, then the President is right.

But the issue isn't merely, "what would make us safer"? Because under that logic, the President could incarcerate all Muslims, or close the borders down indefinitely, or dissolve Congress in the interests of "national security". The President has specific powers laid out to him in the Constitution; when he exceeds those powers he is breaking the law. It's a simple as that.

The other side of the equation, of course, is that Posner and Bush are implicitly saying that if we don't spy on Americans, that Al Qaeda will kill Americans. For all the talk about terrorists "hating us for our freedom", Bush seemed to fold awfully fast when he was worried about evil terrorists.

And the simple fact remains: there have been exactly zero terrorist attacks on America in the four years post September eleventh. And exactly zero for the four years prior to September eleventh, when there were no unauthorized domestic wiretaps. That really illuminates the lie: when Bush, or anyone else, can explain why the FISA process couldn't be used, I'll be impressed.

So Oprah apologized for the James Frey bit.

I can't really blame her, actually. The book is quite compelling and you almost want it to be true, just to show the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. As a work of fiction, I still think I'd enjoy it.

That said, props to the guys at thesmokinggun for doing the research to put this case to rest.

The sky outside my office is so blue it almost hurts. No clouds mar the view. If it were thirty degrees warmer, it would be the sort of perfect, windy day I'd call in sick on. But it being winter, I can only look outside, and imagine.

Every time I've stopped learning at a job, I've left shortly thereafter. And you'd think, after almost seven (damn, has it been that long?) years of work, that I'd have picked up everything I need to know. But I haven't, fortunately, which helps me justify my continued existence.

Sadly, the result of this long period of continual learning about information technology is that I occasionally have trouble at work down-shifting to convey information to users. User X doesn't really need to know about the reverse DNS entry or the improper subnet mask that's preventing them from e-mailing certain users. They just want their e-mail to work. The really tragic thing is that unlike most of the workers at my firm, I can be incredibly busy at home, or off-site, or in my office, and they'd never know it. I will never be able to run into my boss's office and say "Hey, I just scored a new contract!" or "Look, I just saved us thousands of dollars!" Instead, the victories are smaller and less obvious. Things don't break as often as they used to. I get more done with less work. For someone as lazy as me, it's a big deal that I can do all of my work from my house, and that I can manage things with far less effort than I did two or three years ago. But with a long enough timeline, the goal has always been the same: obsolescence.

I look forward to the day where I will no longer have to apply my knowledge to problems of this nature. To a day when I can begin to forget the specifics and focus on the big issues. To the time when I have made myself the perfect redundant cog and can slip out without any decrease in efficiency. It will happen: the only question is when.

So the new motto is up, and comments are back working again. I'll try to get the member pages up and running next, although that'll take a bit more coding than the previous fixes.

Outside my large windows huge clouds are going by. Combined with the sunset, it's a hell of a view.

Kevin told me about this; Fincher (hopefully) was actually there.

Did Franklin actually say that? Of course not. But his actual quote is quite similar, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Translated into modern english, I think the students at the GULC did a good job.

This is an interesting discussion.

The Post, for all its flaws, seems to at least grasp that this is the future of news. Finding a way to let readers interact with reporters (and, god forbid, the ombudsman) is a good thing.

Along those lines I managed to fire off an e-mail to Michael Getler and it appears he's doing well, although he misses the newsroom environment a bit. Go send him a note and ask if he'll ever come back!

What was that title again, Dr. Rice?

Oh, wait. It's 2006, so the newest administration screwup is being alerted about Katrine well in advance.

Here we go:

The NISAC analysis accurately predicted the collapse of floodwalls along New Orleans's Lake Pontchartrain shoreline, an event that the report described as "the greatest concern." The breach of two canal floodwalls near the lake was the key failure that left much of central New Orleans underwater and accounted for the bulk of Louisiana's 1,100 Katrina-related deaths.

The documents shed new light on the extent on the administration's foreknowledge about Katrina's potential for unleashing epic destruction on New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities and towns. President Bush, in a televised interview three days after Katrina hit, suggested that the scale of the flooding in New Orleans was unexpected. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm," Bush said in a Sept. 1 interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

It seems like every time we have a major problem on our hands we discover:

a) the administration had no idea how to handle it b) some government agency briefed the administration a few days beforehand describing the exact scenario c) some government agengy wargamed the particular scenario a few months/years in advance

The point isn't, of course, that the administration deliberately didn't help. Instead, we should focus on the fact that this administration is unable to perform its job for the American people. The entire purpose of a bureaucracy is to generate ideas and plans for when problems arise. To ignore their solutions is idiocy. What could happen next? Let's say that, god forbid, a dirty bomb goes off in DC tomorrow. What would result?

1. the administration would claim it couldn't have predicted the bomb
2. DoE would say that, three months earlier, it had warned the administration that a theft of radioactive materials had taken place at a facility in Kentucky
3. DHS would botch the initial response, and then later discover that FEMA had actually generated a full plan for a dirty-bomb scenario, which was promptly ignored.

Democrats not only need to fight against corruption in government, they also need to restore America's faith in its government. Right now the Bushies are doing everything they can to undermine that faith. Let's not let them get away with it.